Cal coach Montgomery says no excuse for shoving player

BERKELEY, Calif. — California coach Mike Montgomery said Tuesday there was no excuse for him shoving star player Allen Crabbe during a game and that the action was completely out of character for him.

The Associated Press

BERKELEY, Calif. — California coach Mike Montgomery said Tuesday there was no excuse for him shoving star player Allen Crabbe during a game and that the action was completely out of character for him.

"It's obvious I made a mistake and I feel very badly about it," Montgomery said at his weekly news conference Tuesday. "There's no place in sports that you can basically put your hands on one of your student athletes. Got a little carried away in the heat and emotion of a basketball game so I apologized to Allen, I apologized to the team. I feel very badly. In 30-plus years of coaching it's never happened before. It's something I deeply regret. It's not going to happen again."

Montgomery has been publicly reprimanded by the Pac-12 conference and his own athletic director for pushing Crabbe with both hands during a timeout in the second half of Cal's 76-68 win over Southern California on Sunday night.

Crabbe spoke before Montgomery on Tuesday and tried to move past the controversy, saying the whole thing had been "blown out of proportion" the past two days and that he and the team have moved on from it.